EDUCATION / EMPLOYMENT / SKILLS / COMMUNITIES / LOCAL SERVICES
1) EDUCATION and ENTREPRENEURSHIP
- Key recommendation: to promote and expand practical social entrepreneurial programmes with young people that foster an entrepreneurial mindset and approach
- Key commitment: 125,000 young people participating in social entrepreneurship programmes by 2015
a) Government at all levels should seek to promote and pilot social entrepreneurship projects with young people, in schools and colleges but also outside school environments where provision is less, but the potential for change arguably greater
b) Government should advocate for practical programmes that seek to inculcate an entrepreneurial mindset and approach, rather than textbook or curriculum-based introductions to enterprise, across the entire education sector
c) Government should recognise the potential for social entrepreneurship activities to contribute to active citizenship, political, economic and legal education, and the development of life skills and aspiration in young people; particularly with those marginalised or excluded from the mainstream
- Key recommendation: to provide backing for social entrepreneurs who create jobs, lifting themselves and others out of poverty
- Key commitment: create a £500m future social entrepreneurs fund, focusing on job creation, enterprise, apprenticeships, employability skills and sustained employment
a) Government should recognise the ability of social entrepreneurs to create jobs, the first of which is often their own; and that this work lifts themselves and others out of poverty, providing opportunities and inspiration in the most deprived areas
b) Government should further recognise and support social entrepreneurs that create training and employment support services, and also create new jobs as they expand and grow
c) Government needs to ensure that the devolution of power and money from Whitehall to town hall does not stop there, but continues downwards to the grassroots, from where local, sustainable change emerges; true empowerment means giving power to those people to create their own futures and their own opportunities
d) Government should promote volunteering, and create incentives for people to get involved in socially entrepreneurial activity, as a route out of worklessness, to develop skills for employability, and to increase socially-motivated engagement. In many cases, community-level social entrepreneurship is a volunteering activity.
3) SUPPORT, LEARNING and SKILLS
- Key recommendation: to promote support for skills development of social entrepreneurs through vocational, work-based, + practical learning as well as through mainstream education
- Key commitment: dedicate £25m to high-quality practical skills development for social entrepreneurs outside the mainstream
a) Government should recognise that business skills and knowledge are not sufficient for social entrepreneurs, and that long-term personal support, confidence building and networks are also crucial
b) Government should ensure that learning and training programmes for social entrepreneurs are action learning-based, well-promoted and well-resourced; investing in support and learning bursaries is one way to achieve this
c) Government should work with existing agencies to ensure that all social entrepreneurs are able to access high quality, consistent, appropriate support given by those with appropriate knowledge and understanding of their needs
d) Government should support credible organisations with a proven track record; those who are best able to engage and work with users, especially those considered ‘hard to reach’ by conventional means, and provide routes of entry via apprenticeships
e) Government should recognise that skills for life and business skills are not always best developed through mainstream education, but also through more strongly vocational, work-based, practical, experiential and unaccredited options which have fewer barriers to access. At all levels, Government should seek to provide opportunities beyond level 2 box-ticking
- Key recommendation: to support proven community-led asset models, and spaces that allow social entrepreneurs to be more effective
- Key commitment: establish at least one community-led asset / space for social entrepreneurs in each major town and city with a population of 100,000+ by 2015
a) Government should promote, support and expand the existing work on community assets, focusing on proven community-led models and community anchors that devolve power, create jobs and encourage enterprise in the most disadvantaged areas
b) Government should recognise and support organisations making creative use of physical and shared spaces (office, retail, incubation) to support social entrepreneurs and help them be more effective in their work
c) Government should recognise that community cohesion and social capital are built through social entrepreneurship, as well as being delivered by it
d) Government should promote a bottom-up, grassroots-led approach to sustainable social change, which aims to transform ‘beneficiaries’ into active citizens and leaders
e) Government should recognise the strong links between civic engagement, active citizenship and community-based social entrepreneurship
f) Government should continue to promote the necessity of a wider role for housing associations, beyond bricks and mortar, and advocate for proven initiatives that develop and empower their residents to make change in their own lives
- Key recommendation: to invest in local social entrepreneurs, encouraging grassroots innovation, user-led services, and locally-authored solutions
- Key commitment: invest £0.5m per local authority in local social entrepreneurs, encouraging innovation, active citizenship, and devolution of power
a) Government should aim to encourage innovation and risk-taking in service delivery by focusing funding on outcomes and impact, rather than outputs, and through allowing for multiple outcomes from a single investment to be recognised
b) Specifically, Government should advocate for flexible, outcome-based, long-term, measurement-informed procurement and commissioning processes at a local and regional level
c) Government should also ensure freer financial investment is available at local authority level to administer and distribute; many start-up and fledgling social entrepreneur-led initiatives are responding to needs in their own communities not being met by any current, commissioned public service provision
d) Therefore, the Government should seek to invest in locally-based social entrepreneurs, both through direct financial support (seedcorn / transitional grants) and through funding support agencies with a proven track record; the best public service solutions will come from those who best understand the problems
Recent Comments